Every country has heroes, and there are two types of heroes; the ones that will be known in a hundred years and the ones that will be known in a thousand years.
In Portugal there are a lot of people in the last century that can aspire to the hero spot, from this big set of people a significant percentage can be considered a hero... but “hundred year hero”, only few enter in the thousand year category (if any).
In Portugal if I had to chose one person to enter the thousand year group, I would chose General Humberto Delgado.
Portugal was a dictatorship between 1926 and 1974. The most powerful man during that time (first as the finance minister, and then as the prime minister) was Oliveira Salazar. During those times there were lots of people facing the regime, from famous people that were exiled, to the normal average guy (like my grandfather) that help, that risked his job to help another hiding, to help a pamphlet hit the streets... but only one was capable of really scaring the regime, only one achieved power enough for the regime to think that they either stopped him, or the regime was over. That one was General Humberto Delgado.
Just a few moments ago there was on TV a little audio clip of a speech he gave in a coffee shop during the campaign... heard with today’s ears, there is nothing strange about it... but if one tries to understand that, taking in account that you could go to jail for saying something bad about the government, then that speech seems bold, and even inspiring.
Maybe I can only see him as the ultimate XX century Portuguese hero because he had a big group of people behind him supporting him, and also risking their necks... all of them risking the same thing for the same cause, all risking their life’s for a free Portugal, but the reality is that he was the chosen one to step up... and he wasn’t just a face... he was the man that faced the regime and won (well won on votes... at least until they wore counted...) he was the man that died because he wanted a free Portugal.
No comments:
Post a Comment